Looking Back Over 25 Years of Research on Third-party Logistics

This is an excerpt of the original article. It was written for the December 2014 edition of Supply Chain Management Review. The full article is available to current subscribers.

December 2014

By the time you receive your copy of the December issue of SCMR, the holiday rush should be ready to peak and taper off as we all look forward to the year ahead. This issue can help readers prepare in several important ways. This issue also brings you our annual Executive Guide to Supply Chain Resources. This is a comprehensive guide to services, products, and educational opportunities targeted to supply chain professionals. The editors at SCMR wish all of our readers a successful year to come. We hope that the information and insights in this issue will play a part in that success.

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It’s hard to imagine today, but in the late 1980s, third-party logistics (3PL) was relatively new. Today, of course, logistics outsourcing has become an important option for logistics managers in many manufacturing, retail, wholesale, and service settings. The functions performed by 3PL service providers can encompass the entire logistics/supply chain process, or, more commonly, selected activities within that process.

Back then, few businesses were outsourcing their logistics processes to third parties. Nor were many professionals researching or writing about this emerging field. A few articles discussing the concept had appeared in academic and professional publications, but relatively little academic attention had been devoted to the concept at that point.

At that time, I was intrigued by the concept of logistics outsourcing. It was unclear to me how widespread the practice had become, but I believed that if it achieved any significant scale it might fundamentally change the logistics landscape. I also believed that the field was ripe for academic research. In 1990, I submitted a proposal to United Parcel Service Foundation seeking support for a survey of the vice presidents or directors of logistics of the Fortune 500 manufacturers to determine the extent to which they were outsourcing logistics services—and if they were, how it had affected their operations.

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